


Diplomacy

by Lynffles



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Black Whale setting, Dark Continent Arc, Gen, krkr zine submission, let Kurapika sleep, shipping so lowkey it might as well be gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 02:05:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16053176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynffles/pseuds/Lynffles
Summary: It's a vital skill he did know how to bring to bear whenever the situation called for it, thank you very much. No one else needed to know that it's also a coping mechanism by another name. (Running into his archenemies while on a bodyguarding job protecting royalty? Of course he can't go the usual avenue of losing his shit.)





	Diplomacy

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the expanded version of my submission for the digital KRKR fanzine that went on sale earlier this year, and it’s—technically not AU until we see what disasters Togashi has in store for everyone. I also have vague plans of continuing (read: the never-ending struggle of writing Kuroro and Kurapika getting along in as close to canon setting as I can make it) but again it depends on what Togashi does, like if anything horrible will happen that I’m going to want to fix for my own sanity via fic. But for now I’ll be keeping this as a one-shot, because I need to. Start working on the stuff I’m planning to write for this year’s kurokuraweek. And the sequel to BLP, I still have that on my queue, yeah.

Contrary to Mizaistom’s admittedly well-founded worries, nothing too disastrous happened when Kurapika finally found out about the Geneiryodan being on the Black Whale, at least insofar as his role within the complex intertwining of threads that made up Kakin’s succession war was concerned. _That_ was the most critical of his responsibilities at this stage of the expedition, overshadowing almost everything else, including the less relevant but still very embarrassing fact (which Kurapika would do his damnedest to deflect from or only grudgingly admit to if pressed) that he did clock out for the briefest second, a heartbeat in the span of a human life, an eternity where his vision dimmed and his lungs froze on an inhale, the familiar all-consuming anger rising, inexorable and inescapable—

_—The queen. Prince Woble._

Cold reason slammed into place at the very last instant, rooted him where he stood when he would have gone into the offensive, and Kurapika came back to himself to find—everybody still alive.

Small mercies.

Which were actually teeny tiny mercies, came the sickening realization, after he’d taken better stock of the situation and reevaluated just how screwed they were.

There was a hand wrapped around his neck. Kuroro Lucifer had taken advantage of his moment of inattention, crossing the length of the room to get to him while everyone else was still figuring out who the newcomers were. Two more unfamiliar presences had reached even farther to positions behind him, caging him in and cutting him off from anyone who might have been able to help.

The ambient tension within Woble’s quarters skyrocketed from low-key to suffocating.

“… Okay, let’s just—”

The grip around his neck tightened in warning, and Kurapika’s limbs locked as he fought to keep them from lashing out in reflex. His right hand rose in an aborted movement, and he jerked it to the side, palm down in a placating gesture.

It was too late to materialize his chains. Lucifer could crush his spine at the slightest provocation, and that begged the question of why he hadn’t done it already. The Geneiryodan knew better than to toy with him, given the damage he’d already dealt to them in York Shin, so the fact that they hadn’t killed him yet meant… something.

Fuck if he knew what it was.

Heart hammering in his throat, Kurapika wrenched his eyes to the left in lieu of turning his head, telegraphing _I’m not going to fight_ as obviously as he could, but nerves and senses still firing on all cylinders; current disadvantage be damned, he’d have no choice but to break free if the Ryodan ended up taking his next actions the wrong way.

“Put the gun away. Bill—” Because Kurapika didn’t need to look to know that Bill would have pulled his .22 caliber out as his first response, and he was sure that no one else in his party knew how utterly meaningless such an action would be now that the Geneiryodan had entered the picture— “Stand down. Bullets won’t do anything against these people.”

There was an inarticulate noise of disbelief, and the agitated rustle of heavy silk—Oito, thankfully (hopefully) keeping quiet to avoid drawing attention to herself and Woble. Bill, of course, was under no such constraints.

“Like hell I will. What’s _that_ then if not a threat?”

Insurance, maybe? Heck, it might as well be a mere greeting, with how much _more_ the Phantom Brigade were capable of doing. Except he couldn’t exactly explain without sounding like he was blowing the danger way out of proportion, and even if he was inclined to bare all the details of his vendetta against the Geneiryodan, it would be too much to hope that the culprits would behave while he took time out to spit on their very existence.

“They’re—”

“Intruders,” Bhavimaina pointed out, as if it wasn’t patently obvious yet, as if—

Kurapika struggled to think past the adrenaline tearing through his body. It was pure folly, to deliberately ignore all instincts screaming at him to fight back, and complete idiocy to divide his attention so, but then if he’d narrowed his focus only to the enemy in front of him, he would have missed the deliberate way Bhavimaina had interrupted what would have been a very good opportunity for Prince Benjamin’s camp to learn more about his background and his capabilities.

It was a reminder. And a question. Bhavimaina’s rank as a royal guard was high enough that he could call the full wrath of the royal army down on room 1014 if he needed to. So did he need to?

Kurapika considered his next words carefully. Swallowed once, very slowly. He hadn’t looked up yet, but he could feel Lucifer’s gaze like a burning brand on his face, and several more boring holes into his back. If he gave Bhavimaina cause to summon reinforcements, the three Geneiryodan in the room would surely retaliate, and then none of them would probably live to see the next hour.

“They’re not the kind the royal army can arrest and lock up, not if you want this ship to stay afloat long enough to get us to the Dark Continent.”

It could have been his lecturing voice that did it, the one he’d been using to talk circles around feuding bodyguards and retainers for the past week, or maybe it was his utter conviction that something very bad was going to happen if more players were to stumble onto the scene right now. Either way, there was an imperceptible shift in the air, and the weight bearing down on his shoulders eased just the slightest bit—most likely Bill and Bhavimaina backing down, however reluctantly.

“Your eyes. They’re not red,” came Lucifer’s remark at that very moment, as ponderous as if he was asking everyone what they were all doing on this floating deathtrap sailing off into the unknown.

(He hadn’t been avoiding looking, not really, but, well—what were the rules for staring down a venomous snake? Don’t blink, don’t look away? So maybe he’d merely been stalling until he felt fully prepared to engage. He _still_ didn’t feel ready, but he couldn’t put it off any longer, now.)

Kurapika slowly looked up, finally meeting Kuroro Lucifer’s gray eyes head-on.

(And they were as fathomless as he remembered, penetrating and impossible to read all at once.)

“I have contacts on,” he replied, rather more steadily than he actually felt.

Kuroro cocked his head, as if to get a better view of Kurapika’s face from another angle, and Kurapika tried very hard not to fidget under the other man’s scrutiny.

“Take them out,” Kuroro ordered.

The instinctive urge to bristle and refuse took a few seconds to quell, and another pause, as he worked out how to pluck out the lenses one-handed without reflexively ducking his head and breaking eye contact. He vaguely felt Kuroro loosening his grip, and if he didn’t know any better it almost felt like the man was doing it to accommodate his movements—

No. He had to stop reading into everything. Especially minor gestures in the overall goal of getting them all out of this predicament alive. Trying to figure out at this point in time why Lucifer just seemingly became more careful with his hold despite his earlier rougher handling was a distraction.

(Or was it the slide of warm skin against his throat that was distracting him?)

“So you _are_ angry,” Kuroro murmured, as Kurapika stared back, blood-red eyes uncovered from behind the black contacts he’d taken to wearing near-permanently. “For a moment I thought you’d forgotten.”

“I’m not—” It felt like a punch to the gut, the accusation that he’d forget, even for a moment, the wounds that had been inflicted on his life, so that he was left breathless with rage and couldn’t continue past his strangled denial. On the flipside, though, it gave him strength, fed that part of him that was very displeased with his current position, with Oito and Shimano, and Bill and Bhavimaina bearing witness to him _conceding_ to his assailant, however necessary—

(And it was. _It was._ How ironic for Kuroro to say he’d forgotten, when it was taking everything he had just to push aside the storm of emotions threatening to overcome his tenuous hold on reason—)

“I’m here as a bodyguard,” he gritted out, “and as a Zodiac of the Hunter Association. I literally do not have the capacity to deal with you lot on top of everything else.”

“You killed Uvo and Paku,” Kuroro said lowly, a dissatisfied frown on his face, and was he— _reminding?_ Trying to trigger the same display of hatred and hostility Kurapika had showed him before?

He realized that he was trembling—from anger or exhaustion, the sum total of the past few days of stress and frustration—and one of his hands had found its way up to Kuroro’s clothes, seizing the lapel of his coat in a shaking, white-knuckled grip.

“And you slaughtered my entire clan, don’t you _dare_ act like you have any right to my time,” he hissed in return. There was a gasp and a quiet oath behind him, but Kurapika was too far gone to care about who might be listening. “Now, what the hell are you doing here, and what do you want?”

Kuroro blinked, something like bewilderment stealing over his features. He looked taken aback by the question, and didn’t seem to know how to answer, and—Kurapika didn’t have time for this. Every second they spent on pleasantries doubled the chances of another unrelated person arriving and getting caught in the inevitable crossfire.

“Tell me so I can decide if there’s anything I can do to get you off this floor faster,” he demanded again.

“Hey,” one of the two Ryodan behind him piped up; a girl, young and (encouragingly) sounding more curious than angry. “We’re your enemy, right? Why are you offering to help us?”

Kurapika wanted to turn around and yell. It shouldn’t be _that_ hard to figure out why he didn’t want anyone with nen-powered psychotic inclinations going on a rampage on a boat hundreds of miles away from land.

“In case you didn’t notice when you ran up here, the entire first deck is on heightened alert. There’s a war of succession being waged over the Kakin throne, the heirs are killing each other to get to it, and there are nen beasts with unknown abilities everywhere. You can’t—you can’t be here.” Kurapika swallowed, mentally cursing that tiny vulnerable hitch of desperation that had slipped into his entreaty.

He could deter assassins and continue thinking of a way to get Woble and Oito off the ship and out of the king’s asinine competition, still work towards his end goal of approaching Tserriednich, _and_ force the stalemate amongst the different factions of the princes’ bodyguards for as long as possible, because it was a stalemate he’d orchestrated, and he’d gone into it all with a pretty good idea of what had to be done and an understanding of what was at stake. Suddenly having three—or worse—all the Geneiryodan members charging through the royal and VIP decks—nobody, not even the other Zodiacs had planned for this scenario, and he couldn’t even begin to wrap his head around the kind of fallout that would arise, let alone think of how to head off such a disaster.

At least, not right now, anyway. He needed an hour. Or two. He’d consider these new factors into his ever-shifting plans and strategies, or collapse for another nine hours trying.

“You should know better than anyone that something like political tension isn’t going to stop us from getting what we want,” Kuroro said, in a manner that could almost be mildly chastising.

“No, just—” Kurapika ruthlessly clamped down on the sensation of bile rising up his throat. “Whatever it is you’re after, now isn’t a good time to go looking for it. You’ll lose it in the chaos.”

“He’s telling the truth,” a voice at his back interjected. “The air here is strange, Danchou. I’d rather not proceed until we know more.”

It was the third Ryodan member. Kurapika held his breath, hardly able to believe that one of them would actually listen to him. And Kuroro’s unblinking regard was _still_ trained on him, but it was now more shrewdly contemplative than threatening, which wasn’t really that much better, but hey.

“We’re looking for Hisoka.”

Kurapika blinked. That wasn’t what he’d expected. An artifact, sure, or a higher-value target from the ship’s roster of flamboyantly rich passengers, he’d understand, but one of their own members? Didn’t they have ways of keeping track of each other? And he couldn’t think of a single reason why Hisoka would even want to go to the Dark Continent. Or had the expedition simply sucked in all the irredeemable dregs of the human race, as exemplified by the presence of the Phantom Brigade members in front of him?

“I haven’t seen him,” he said slowly, understandably wary of the possible repercussions of answering in the negative, but Kuroro only shook his head, waving off his reply.

“He can change his appearance, so you’ll have to check for height. Look for anyone over six feet tall.” Kuroro paused, as if to consider his next words, and added, “I might be persuaded to leave everyone in this room alone if you manage to get me that information.”

Kurapika glared, affronted by the attempt at extorting his cooperation when he’d already—as ungraciously as he’d given it—implicitly offered his assistance. “The best I can do is narrow it down. The royal army would obviously recruit for strength and stature, and he could easily assume the identity of any of their taller soldiers and blend in.”

Something crossed Kuroro’s face then, something ugly, and raw, and terrifyingly familiar, and for a second Kurapika felt the ground drop out from under his feet—he’d said something wrong, made the mass murderer in front of him even _more_ pissed off than he already seemed to be—but then the constricting band around his neck disappeared abruptly, and Bill and Bhavimaina were suddenly in front of him, crowding him back to the relative safety of the side of the room without Geneiryodan members—

Who continued to watch him, even as Kuroro let go and stepped away.

Kurapika dug his heels in and pulled himself free from his well-meaning escort.

“Your best will be enough,” Kuroro said, once he saw that Kurapika had shaken off both his confusion and his cohorts. “I’ll hunt him down myself once I have a list.”

“We’re going back?” the girl asked, already half-turned towards the main entrance to the suite. As Kurapika had thought, she was young, not much older than Gon or Killua, large eyes magnified by oversized square-framed glasses.

“A strategic retreat. Only until we’ve obtained more information,” the third Phantom Brigade member assured. He was one Kurapika hadn’t seen before, whipcord-thin and literally wrapped in bandages from head to toe.

All the Geneiryodan were dangerous no matter how innocuous-looking, but there were a few that had more destructive abilities, and were more violent and bloodthirsty, and therefore probably impossible to deal with using reason alone. That Lucifer wasn’t being accompanied by those more problematic members was… concerning.

“One more question, Kuruta,” Kuroro called out, and Kurapika forced his focus back together from the several different threads all clamoring for his attention to find that the other man had stopped at the threshold of the doorway. “You haven’t forgotten that we’re thieves as well, have you?”

_Who’d even forget—_

No. Lucifer had to be trying to goad him, but it wasn’t happening, however offensive or insulting the question. There was no satisfaction to be had in rising to the obvious baiting, or doing anything to turn it around and get the last word, not when he was too tired, and sick of the reminders, and of the feeling that he was only reacting, barely managing to dodge all the pitfalls yawning ahead of him one after the other. He took a deep, steadying breath and opened his eyes, and when he next spoke his voice was back to cold and controlled, a layer of defense he could afford to slap back on now that he wasn’t one wrong move away from getting throttled.

“My primary purpose here is to protect the Fourteenth Prince Woble and her mother. And keep the other younger princes alive, if possible. I couldn’t care less if you decide to rob everyone on this ship blind after you’ve dealt with Hisoka.”

Kuroro nodded slowly, as if he’d thought as much, but the slight frown wrinkling the skin between his brows looked almost… disappointed.

Something unpleasantly hot washed down Kurapika’s spine—which he realized with a shock was the flush of embarrassment, and the first stirrings of outrage. “Don’t touch the Fourth Prince Tserriednich,” Kurapika added before he could stop himself. “He’s in possession of a number of items that belong to the Kuruta. I _will_ go after you if I find out that you’ve stolen those items as well.”

That was rather more than what he’d have allowed himself to let slip within Bhavimaina’s hearing, but he wasn’t about to suffer getting dismissed as an active obstacle by the goddamned _Geneiryodan_ , just because his current priorities weren’t in conflict with theirs.

He still wanted to punch himself, though, because—an afterthought as a warning, really? But instead of dismissing him again, like Kurapika fully expected him to do, Kuroro merely smiled—the barest uptick of one corner of his lips, a mere ghost of what could have been a smirk, his amusement at the challenge palpable if only because it provided stark contrast to the grimness shrouding him like a well-worn cloak. And then he was gone.

Nobody moved for nearly a minute after that, as if relief at having weathered another disaster unscathed had stunned them all. “Shit,” Bill muttered, very succinctly, after that minute of watching and waiting had come and gone, and Kurapika huffed out one borderline-hysterical note of laughter before finally giving his knees permission to fold out from under him.

“—Oi! Hey, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he replied automatically, then blinked up at the faces swimming above him as he considered the feeling of his strength draining from his limbs. The crash following a massive adrenaline rush, which wasn’t completely unfamiliar, but he’d have preferred not having an audience while he dealt with the aftereffects of facing the Geneiryodan and miraculously escaping with everyone unharmed in spite of being utterly unprepared for the encounter.

“… I think I’m going to throw up,” he added in a smaller voice, sending Shimano scurrying for a bucket, which reminded him that he was on his ass on the floor, throwing all unspoken rules about maintaining a seemly, unruffled client-facing façade out the window, and probably failing at keeping his usual unaffected demeanor if his fast-unraveling nerves were any indication.

Kurapika struggled to his feet, ignoring Bill’s admonishing _stop moving if you’re nauseous, idiot_.

Oito was fine, of course, if fine meant living to see yet another crisis-filled day in Hui Guo Rou’s succession war. Woble had slept through the entire thing, thank god, and was safely tucked in her mother’s arms, but the point was that she might _not_ have been fine, nor anywhere within the league of safe.

His gut churned at the reminder of what they could have very easily lost.

“Your Highness, I—” His throat worked soundlessly for a moment, as Kurapika belatedly tried to figure out what was driving him to speak in the first place. Revulsion, mortification at having to apologize at all made it difficult; this was exactly why he refused to involve anyone in his problems, because he didn’t want people getting hurt, because he couldn’t bring himself to think about what he’d do if the Geneiryodan took anyone else from him—but he _had_ to apologize. He felt fit to burst with the need to ensure he never looked as helpless as he did under Kuroro’s mercy in front of someone he was supposed to be protecting.

“My deepest apologies for placing you in danger,” he tried again, after pulling in enough breath that he didn’t feel quite so light-headed with the effort of trying to give voice to his regrets. “You shouldn’t have had to see that. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to prevent it.”

The frown Oito gave him was sharp with confusion and disbelief, which immediately softened to concern. “You didn’t know they’d be here, did you? Their intrusion isn’t your fault. But, no, you… you mentioned your family…?”

“I… no longer have any. It happened a long time ago,” he hurried to add, as if the intervening time had done his grief any favors, but of course it hadn’t, and it never would. Horrible, awkward silence descended, and Kurapika cursed himself as the distress that had crumpled Oito’s face stubbornly remained despite his fumbling attempt at an assurance.

“I’m—I’m all right, really,” he tried again, but his previous eloquence seemed to have been kicked aside by earnest honesty; his thoughts were sluggish, and they felt more liable to loop back to all the times he’d failed to keep control over his own actions when faced with the Ryodan, which were mistakes he could no longer afford to repeat. “You needn’t worry, this is just another obstacle to overcome. We’ll ensure your safety and Woble’s survival, even if I have to—”

There was a _thunk_ , the sound and sensation more surprising than painful, of someone bringing their fist down on his head and interrupting him before he could say exactly what he was prepared to do as a last resort.

“Bill, what—”

“Dumbass,” the man said, and waggled his fisted hand tauntingly even as Kurapika stared at him with wide eyes. “She’s worried about you, and if you’ve been blessed enough to have royalty worrying about you, you accept it gracefully. Don’t diss it and go straight to talking about your goddamn job—”

“I’m not diss—”

Bill ignored him, and deliberately turned in place so that he was facing Oito when he continued. “Anyway, Highness, this dumbass basically saved all our asses, so I’ll support you if you decide to worry about how much it must have cost him to do what he did instead of enabling his misplaced conscience.”

“Bill!” Kurapika gasped, dismayed and scandalized—too much, that was way too forward. Oito certainly wasn’t the type to put on airs and had gamely, if sometimes confusedly accepted that her bodyguards might have to act roughly in life-or-death situations, but that had to have crossed a line somewhere.

Oito only coughed, however, daintily hiding what was very obviously a surprised giggle behind her free hand. “Yes, well. Thank you, Bill. I’ll count on your support,” she said demurely, flicking eyes still dark with concern from Bill to Kurapika, who had the vaguely discomfiting feeling that they were expecting him to say something just then, but he was too busy being perplexed to think of what it could be.

And he honestly had no idea what to do with what Bill had just crassly pointed out.

Maybe _not_ gape back with his eyes still in their scarlet state would be a good start, though.

To the ladies’ credit, neither started too badly when Kurapika wrestled his eyes back to normal. Shimano blinked once, and the worried wrinkle between Oito’s eyebrows deepened just the tiniest bit, and then Woble with her usual impeccable timing woke up right at that moment and began gurgling for her breakfast, sparing him from having to answer any uncomfortable questions about why he was hyper-focusing on the mission in lieu of pursuing a healthier approach to dealing with their latest problem.

Such as acknowledging that he wasn’t going to be _all right_ facing his family’s murderers, like a responsible, well-adjusted adult, for example.

Pitifully confused was obviously a state he tried very hard to avoid being in while working with people who might eat him alive if he showed any sign of weakness, but he couldn’t exactly help it. Bill took one look at his expression and sighed.

“Look, I did a stint as an artifact hunter, all right?” Bill muttered, one hand rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously. “Only for a year or so, before switching over to exploration, and I had to prove to the Association that I was serious about transferring my specialty, so I studied a lot to prepare for it.” The other hunter paused, jaw working as if grinding down on something unpleasant, and Kurapika stiffened as Bill caught and held his gaze, looking not at him so much as at the now unassuming brown of his irises. “I read about what the Geneiryodan did to the Kuruta. And I can’t even imagine the sheer self-control a survivor would need to keep from losing their shit in front of even one of those bastards.”

The fear of discovery had lessened over the years as he grew stronger and more confident in his capabilities, and there were just—so many more things to be afraid of at the moment that it had dwindled down to something nearly negligible, but that knee-jerk fight-or-flight reaction to being called out was probably never going to go away entirely, and it caught in his throat now, strangled the automatic denial that wanted to slip out, and the protest that Bill had it wrong and it wasn’t self-control. It couldn’t be self-control when he didn’t even feel _in_ control, but he couldn’t say that, couldn’t let anyone realize how very close they all came to dying a watery death just then.

He stopped, swallowed, and tried to breathe with lungs that suddenly felt three sizes too small.

(Two hundred thousand souls and the tattered remains of his humanity in exchange for the complete destruction of his enemies, or _his_ soul, his vows, promises he made in front of graves long overgrown and consigned to history, to ensure they all lived long enough to see land again?

It didn’t even bear comparing.)

“I—we don’t have a choice. I’ve fought them before, and—” Kurapika looked up at Bhavimaina, and blinked at the change in perspective; he’d somehow gone from unsteady but standing upright to sitting down in a chair Bill had pulled over without noticing. “And I wasn’t exaggerating. If anyone tries to confront them, if a fight breaks out, and even one of them decided to use their nen abilities—forget surviving the succession war, we’ll all sink and drown with the Black Whale if the battle doesn’t kill us first.”

“What about… if you fought them on dry land?” Bhavimaina asked slowly.

“What?”

“You said you’ve fought them before,” the soldier pointed out. “You’re clearly concerned about possible collateral damage to the ship. It would be different on land, wouldn’t it? Could you fight them on equal terms then?”

There was no correct answer here. Replying in the affirmative would technically be stretching the truth, but Kurapika wasn’t about to say plainly that he’d relied heavily on the element of surprise that time he’d gone after the Ryodan, either, not when he wasn’t sure what to make of Bhavimaina just yet. At best he was merely a spy for the First Prince, at worst he could be an assassin as rotten as his predecessor had been. But what Kurapika had seen of his aura felt calm and steadfast, and he’d cancelled his en sphere seemingly out of consideration for Oito’s fledgling senses. It at least meant that Bhavimaina wasn’t singularly focused on getting rid of them to the exclusion of all common sense, which was honestly more than he could have asked for, if they absolutely had to accept getting saddled with yet another plant from a rival prince.

It still wasn’t ideal, for his identity and his ties to the Geneiryodan to be discovered by someone from Prince Benjamin’s camp, but it could have been worse. He could be dealing with all the other bodyguards and servants instead of just Bhavimaina if Kuroro had decided to barge in even an hour later. Now _that_ would have been an unmitigated disaster.

Either way, deflection would no longer serve him here. Or maybe he could turn it _around_ and give them more information than they knew what to do with?

Kurapika grimaced and broke eye contact, and it wasn’t even an act. Freely giving away information about his abilities felt too much like happily handing his enemies more blades to skewer him with.

“I did… kill the two Ryodan members he mentioned, but—” he hesitated, exhaled, caught the exact moment when Bhavimaina’s eyes widened and then narrowed in confusion, “—the second one violated an obey-or-die condition I’d placed on her, so I can’t really claim to have fought her. I defeated the first one in direct combat, though. He was their strongest in terms of brute physical strength.”

It was almost hilarious how different and yet fundamentally similar Bill and Bhavimaina’s reactions were. Bhavimaina looked uncertain, for once, and understandably unable to fully trust in the veracity of the information he’d just received. Bill was just—staring, aghast and slack-jawed, and possibly regretting all the choices he’d made that had led him here, to this particular ship, at this specific point in time.

Bluntly stating that he’d successfully dispatched blacklist targets as notorious as the Phantom Brigade always did garner that brand of horrified incredulity. Of course, the horror could be the perfectly reasonable reaction of someone learning that they were standing right next to a person who could at any moment become the target of an indiscriminate retaliatory attack by angry Ryuuseigai residents, but not very many people knew the Ryodan had its roots there. Kurapika had always just chalked it up to the hysteria surrounding the monstrous reputation of the group.

(The First Prince’s camp should already suspect him of possessing a truth-compelling ability, anyway, so claiming that he had one he could use to force obedience was just… stoking the flames a bit.)

Bill was the first to snap out of his disbelief, shifting and subtly changing his stance so that he seemed to loom over them even though Bhavimaina was taller, and incidentally (more importantly) stoppering the discussion before any other incriminating bits could be dragged out of them.

“All right you lunatic,” and Kurapika opened his mouth to object to the name-calling, but once again Bill deliberately talked right over him. “If that was you in York Shin, then yeah, you’re strong enough to fight them. Not right now, though—right now you’re tired and probably in shock, and you have a bucket with your name on it.”

It shouldn’t be that easy for anyone to just browbeat him into subsiding, let alone someone like Bill who seemed content to follow and support his direction, but Kurapika was left clutching the bucket Shimano had scrounged up from their stores, while Bill stalked off to the main entrance, muttering about Kakin’s excessive security measures failing spectacularly just when they could have helped the most.

Kurapika contemplated the metal depths of the bucket for a moment before deciding that he wasn’t really in any danger of losing his breakfast. He did feel weak and shivery, but no longer lightheaded nor dizzy, and the weakness should pass— _had_ to pass—in another moment. Zhang Lei’s bodyguards habitually arrived ten minutes earlier than everyone else, and he needed to be back on his feet well before that.

“You can take a minute, you know. Or ten,” came the low-voiced encouragement from Bhavimaina, and Kurapika looked up, slightly puzzled as to why the other man hadn’t retreated to his usual position along a wall where it would be easier to monitor the rest of the room. Instead he’d settled into parade rest position, and he had an… odd expression on his face. As if he’d swallowed something the wrong way. It was so uncharacteristically perturbed that it threw Kurapika for a loop until he recognized it as the same face he’d make whenever he found his body moving before he realized it, and usually to facilitate the kind of action that went against his better wishes.

Kurapika felt amused despite himself.

“Ten minutes,” he conceded, on account of something in his instincts telling him that it was safe, that he could afford to let his guard down at least this much, and if he turned out to be wrong, well. He needed to set aside time to think about the possible consequences of the events of the past thirty minutes, anyway.

“I—still need to report this to First Prince Benjamin,” Bhavimaina added after another awkward pause. “He’s the deputy military adviser of the royal army, and has a duty to ensure the safety of our citizens during this expedition, so he needs to know of any disruptive forces aboard this ship.”

Kurapika nodded, having already accepted that he couldn’t do anything to prevent news of the encounter from getting passed up the ranks. Whether that information would include his vehement warnings to avoid engaging the Geneiryodan in an all-out brawl while they were still out at sea depended on Bhavimaina’s discretion, but the odds that his behavior, and the almost frantic, overcautious stance he’d taken against the intruders would be included in the report were at least pretty good.

“I can send out preliminary inquiries,” Bhavimaina continued, “Ask the others to watch out for anyone acting oddly.”

“I’d be in your debt,” Kurapika said, not bothering to hide the relieved note in his voice, because a favor offered to him was still a favor he wouldn’t have to ask for, and since he had a feeling that he’d be calling in a lot more of those before this was over, it would be best if he didn’t make it a habit of begging for help this early on in the expedition.

Bhavimaina frowned and huffed, surprisingly expressive in his dissatisfaction. “If what Bill said is true, we’re already in yours. This—Hisoka can change his appearance?”

Kurapika spared all of a second to wonder if he’d be throwing Hisoka under the bus by answering honestly, before abruptly realizing that he had zero wiggle room for altruism here. This was the _Geneiryodan._ They were vile and insane, not dumb; they’d have enough awareness—if only by virtue of being part of a group of like-minded degenerates—to know what would tick themselves _and_ each other off, be it mild insults or the most unforgiveable offenses. Whatever Hisoka had done had to have been bad enough to overshadow even Kurapika’s actions in York Shin, and he couldn’t have _not_ known that the rest would want revenge for it.

Which meant that Hisoka had to have made the decision to lead the Geneiryodan here. He could have been playing his stupid game of death tag with the Ryodan on any of the continents in the known world, but instead he decided he’d drag everyone else on the Black Whale along for the train wreck, and Kurapika really could have done without all that noise, so—

“It’s one of his abilities,” Kurapika replied, recalling the information Killua had given him last year, and if he sounded inexplicably angrier than he was a minute ago, Bhavimaina didn’t comment on it. “He can change his aura to mimic textures and appearances, so he’d be able to change his entire face to look like someone else. I don’t know if his disguise can be detected using gyo, so it’s probably better to try but assume that we can’t.”

_Of course it wouldn’t be that easy_ , conveyed the frown that had taken up permanent residence on the other blond’s face. “Would you know why he’d hide? Why these people are looking for him?”

“It’s a manhunt.” Not that he had any hard evidence of it being the case. It’s damnably easy to say that it was a ship-wide manhunt, with an S-class criminal group casting the net, a target as dangerous as the people doing the hunting, and two hundred thousand bystanders with nowhere to run, and end up getting overwhelmed thinking of all the different horrible ways this could end badly, but if he ignored the ship part and forgot about the risk of collateral damage and potential massive loss of life, he’d be left with the look Kuroro had given him when he’d mentioned that Hisoka could be hiding amongst the Kakin army.

Who knew that grief on Kuroro Lucifer looked no different from the face that greeted him in the mirror during mornings when he felt extra determined to dwell on his ghosts? Kurapika certainly didn’t. And he still had no idea what to feel about it.

(Except maybe disgust with himself for empathizing with a psychopath, even for that single moment.)

“Hisoka must have killed at least one of the other members, very likely in cold blood, and he’s supposed to be a member himself, so it would be seen as a betrayal. I can’t think of any other reason that would—draw their attention like this.” Or any other reason that could make Lucifer look that wretched, anyway. Kurapika tilted his head and flicked his gaze to Bill, who was stomping back to them after eyeballing the doors and presumably finding nothing he could do about spider-proofing the solid oak panels.

“Whoever he’s replaced would most likely be dead.”

The slightest tightening of skin between the eyebrows was Bhavimaina’s only response to that conclusion, but he gave Bill a nod as the other man drew close, before wordlessly moving off towards the wall-mounted intercom.

“… He calling it in?” Bill grunted.

Kurapika hummed noncommittally. A rhetorical question didn’t need an answer. What Bill really wanted to ask was how he was holding up. The other bodyguard was rather blatantly looking him over even now, and Kurapika bore it with long-suffering patience formed from months of working with Linssen and a few other subordinates with overdeveloped mothering instincts.

“Okay, you know I have to ask,” Bill continued in the same disgruntled manner, “What was all that? I thought we’re supposed to keep ‘em guessing about our abilities? Why would you tell them?”

“If they’re too busy trying to figure out what I can or can’t do, then their focus will narrow. They’ll be more likely to miss things they’re not paying attention to.” They could fixate on the obey-or-die bit and end up missing that he could ferret out truth from lies without needing to coerce anyone, for example. The logic flowed better while he was hashing it out in his head, but said aloud it unfortunately sounded too much like he was merely—instigating. Stirring an already muddled pot.

Bill certainly didn’t look convinced, so Kurapika added, “And if they decide that they need me to deal with the Geneiryodan, they’ll think twice about trying to get rid of us.”

“That’s… a really risky gamble, don’t you think?” Bill said doubtfully.

“My life has been nothing but a series of really risky gambles ever since I decided to go after the Geneiryodan,” Kurapika groused, and—okay, the lack of sleep was maybe finally starting to get to him. He was backpedaling even before the discomfited grimace had finished flashing across Bill’s face.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound so cavalier about it, it’s just—” Years and years spent preparing for and then chasing and executing his vengeance, nearly half of his life to date, if he wanted to be pedantic about it. Kurapika felt exhausted all of a sudden, and it was a struggle to keep it from seeping into his voice. “I know better than anyone what the Ryodan are capable of. At least trust that I’ll never forget, even when I’m trying to use them to our advantage.”

Bill ran a hand through his hair, obvious frustration on his face. He didn’t reply right away, and it was clear that he still had misgivings, but he sighed audibly after another moment of hesitation. “Yeah, all right, I can give you that.”

It wasn’t the statement of confidence Kurapika had hoped to hear, but it would have to be enough. The blond shook his head and heaved himself upright, half-expecting his knees to creak a protest and insist that he needed to rest some more, but they were as steady as they’d ever been.

“How do you know about York Shin?” he asked, more to distract the other man than to fulfill any burning curiosity, although Bill knowing enough about the Kuruta to realize that he was a survivor had surprised him.

Speaking of—he’d wasted another pair of contacts. He’d brought enough disposable sets to last him the handful of months the journey was supposed to take, but at the rate he kept taking them out and then discarding them for the sake of making a point, he was going to run out sooner rather than later.

He had to be more careful about who he showed his eyes to. Tserriednich had remained stubbornly unreceptive to all forms of contact, isolating himself in his suite and only making appearances during banquets, and given Shimano’s assessment of Benjamin’s cruelty and refusal to negotiate with enemies, it was safe to assume that the eldest prince would never share any of the information Bhavimaina would shortly be dumping on him with the younger fourth prince, but…

Tserriednich _was_ going to find out eventually. Kurapika just had to make sure it happened on his terms, and not prematurely, carried along by spying bodyguards and gossiping retainers.

“Rumors,” Bill supplied, readily accepting the change of topic despite how bald-faced it was. “Speculations on the Association’s forums. Something—or some _one_ —” and he looked pointedly at Kurapika, “—pissed off the Geneiryodan so badly, they went on a rampage in retribution.”

Kurapika stopped midway through carrying his chair back to the dining room and gave Bill a severe frown. “What happened to the mafia wasn’t my fault.”

“I didn’t say it was,” Bill replied evenly, which—another point to him for not backing down in the face of disapproval. Kurapika had already seen several examples of the other hunter’s level-headedness, and he idly wondered if Sayird and Kurton would have been just as reliable.

“But, about that—the bodies of the Ryodan they found were fake, weren’t they?”

Kurapika carefully set the chair down in its empty spot against the dining table and nodded. He didn’t have to turn around to say anything else.

“’Course it’d be too good to be true,” Bill muttered from somewhere behind him, and Kurapika had to hide a tiny, weary smile. He remembered thinking the exact same thing, underneath the pulsing red of his anger and disbelief at receiving Hisoka’s message.

And now he was going to have to cooperate with Kuroro in pinning down Hisoka’s whereabouts. He’d be mortally offended at the irony of it all if he had any energy to spare for vainly railing at the universe.

Kurapika ducked into his bunk to grab and slip on a new pair of contact lenses. A quick inquiring glance into the queen’s bedroom next showed Oito and Shimano still feeding and playing with Woble. Their baby girl was burbling and squealing the language of a happy infant, and he quietly backed out of the room before he could be tempted into… staying, and basking in her contentment. Which _would_ help calm him down, but could also make him feel even more vulnerable.

Bill shot him a knowing look when they returned to the outer room, and Kurapika kept his face completely blank of the scowl that wanted to break out in response. They had a handful of minutes before the other bodyguards started arriving, so he needed to focus. He took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders, slowly letting tension bleed away from his limbs.

Field today’s assassination attempts for now, deal with Kuroro Lucifer’s party-crashing ass later. Right.

“Do you really have an obey-or-die ability?” Bill asked in an undertone, seemingly apropos of nothing.

Kurapika blinked his eyes open. He actually didn’t mind telling Bill the truth, but they had no way of knowing for sure that Bhavimaina couldn’t hear them, even if they dropped their voices too low to be heard from where the guard was still talking into the phone. Abilities like Senritsu’s preternatural hearing existed, after all.

“I have ten fingers, Bill,” he said mildly, instead of answering directly. “You’ve only seen me use two of them so far.”

Bill gaped at him. “That… that is the most ominous thing anyone has ever said to me, what the hell.”

Kurapika held his amusement for a moment before going back to reordering his priorities for the day—but wouldn’t that be an idea, though? If he could somehow trick their enemies into believing that he had specific abilities assigned to all ten of his fingers, they’d be too wary to attack, and take so much time identifying every facet of his hatsu that he could hold them off on sheer uncertainty alone all the way until the end of the expedition.

Any capable nen user worth their salt would know the claim for the bluff it would be, though. Or think him an idiot, and weak, because then he’d be diluting his power across too many abilities. A better way to discourage further attacks would be to recruit more nen wielders, but Kurapika had no idea how to get past the royal red tape wrapped tight around them to even begin asking for more help that he could trust.

Maybe he could make a deal with—

Kurapika snorted, and shook his head as if to dislodge the intrusive thought from where it had tried to sink in and take root. The weakest, youngest, and least influential prince suddenly gaining the Phantom Brigade as her protectors was as ludicrous an image as it was impossible, and he shouldn’t even be courting the minute chance of it popping into existence by imagining it.

It wasn’t happening.

_It wasn’t, goddamn it._

**Author's Note:**

> I hadn’t been planning on Bill and Bhavimaina (you can pry that spelling of his name out of my cold dead hands) forming the Black Whale chapter of the Kurapika Protection Squad, but uhh it happened.


End file.
